Pashinyan to blame Armenian society, Russia for his failure Russian expert on Caliber.Az

An interview by Caliber.Az with Russian economist, director of the New Society Institute, and political scientist Vasily Koltashov.

- In your opinion, how high is the probability of the deployment of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) mission on the conditional Armenian-Azerbaijani border, what is Armenia so opposed to? Could it happen before the end of this year?

- Opposing Russian initiatives is Nikol Pashinyan's habitual style. The fact that he tries in every possible way to show that Russia cannot offer anything worthwhile and useful for Armenia is part of a big game being played in the West. Pashinyan only plays a small role, using Armenian interests as expendable material. Therefore, it is difficult for me to predict anything about the possible or impossible appearance of the CSTO mission on the conditional border of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

- What would you say about Armenia's continuing claims to the CSTO? Doesn't it seem to be another blackmail organized by Yerevan, as always counting on additional preferences?

- Yerevan's claims to the CSTO look very strange. It is enough to recall that the military conflict of 2020 started with Pashinyan's statement that the territories controlled by the Armenian military belong to Armenia. Thus, the entire system of complex diplomatic restrictions of both sides was destroyed, and Azerbaijan received a formal basis for action. And how should the CSTO react to this situation, if Yerevan considers the territory of another state to be its part? The CSTO did not refuse to support Armenia, but only within its borders. And now Pashinyan is intensively criticizing the bloc, trying to make it look helpless, as it is important for him to morally destroy it. This is first of all.

And secondly, this is happening because Pashinyan is not an Armenian politician, but only a protégé of the West. If Armenia simply collapses at some point as a result of Pashinyan's actions, the Prime Minister expects to go safely to the West, where he will declare that, say, Armenia turned out to be a bad expendable material. That's all.

- Taking into account the extremely high degree of hatred towards Azerbaijan in the Armenian information space, do you allow the possibility of full normalization of relations?

- Taking into account the high degree of hatred in the Armenian information space towards Azerbaijan, one simple thing should be understood, which Pashinyan and his masters have perfectly realized. They realized that the Armenian people are like children, otherwise, the civil society in Armenia should have torn Pashinyan apart back in 2020. It should have destroyed him as a politician for his adventurism. But it didn't happen, Pashinyan stayed in power. This is a great tragedy for the Armenian people and at the same time a mockery of history. And Pashinyan and his masters have learned a lesson from all this: it is possible, having lost the war for Karabakh, to blame anyone.

In fact, Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan, which has reclaimed its territories, and it is easier for Armenia to accuse Russia of having lost Karabakh. That is, this is a childish level of deception on the part of the authorities in relation to Armenian society, counting on the fact that, figuratively speaking, it is not able to distinguish white from black. For example, if we compare Russian society with Armenian, it is obvious that Russian society, with all its philistinism, egocentrism and preoccupation with personal enrichment, is head and shoulders above the Armenian one.

- How do you see the future of Armenian-Russian relations against the background of growing anti-Russian sentiments in Armenian society?

- Russian-Armenian relations will be difficult, no improvement, even visible, is to be expected. Pashinyan has played the game in his own way. He found himself in a dangerous situation in 2020, after which he began to create the appearance of readiness to work with Russia. And Russian diplomats seemed to think that he had finally reached the level of a politician. As it turned out, this was a delusion. Now Pashinyan himself demonstrates on whose side he plays, so he has no faith in Russia. Most likely, Pashinyan is perceived as a head of state with an absolutely hostile position, seeking to create problems and conflict in the Caucasus for Russia, which is absolutely not in the interests of Moscow.